La critica immanente delle forme di vita: una teleologia emancipatoria anti-essenzialista

This paper focuses on the relation between Rahel Jaeggi’s theory of the Forms of Life and Hegel’s notion of Ethical Life, as it appears in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. he paper begins by highlighting the scission between right and good, which is typical of liberal approaches to the moral right and excludes the ethical good from the philosophical debate. I emphasize how such distinction leads to a neutral attitude towards the good, which is seen as something pertaining only to individual choices. Starting from this scission, I will analyse Jaeggi’s attempt to bring the ethical dimension of a form of life back to the center of the philosophical debate, by recovering the traditional emancipatory approach of the Critical heory and developing it through Hegel’s theory of Objective Spirit – in particular, thanks to the notion of Ethical Life. I will pay particular attention to the method of immanent critique adopted by Jaeggi. By exploring its negative aspects and its transformative ability, I will systematically stress the connection to Hegel. he negativity of the immanent critique, typical of Jaeggi’s method, will be explained as process of self-determination and self-realisation – to be understood as a historical-cultural and not as an essentialist. At the same time, the immanence of the normativity will emerge as what all enables the dialectic between the individual and the community.